Fig7_12 Globular star cluster M80

Fig. 7.12 . Hundreds of thousands of ancient stars are held together by their mutual gravitational attraction in this globular star cluster, which is designated M 80 or NGC 6093 and is located about 28,000 light-years from Earth. Most of the stars displayed in this Hubble Space Telescope image are about as old as the observable universe, with ages of nearly 14 billion years, much older than our Sun that is 4.6 billion years old. Stellar collisions result in more massive, and relatively young, “blue straggler” stars in the dense core of the globular cluster. (Courtesy of NASA/AURA/STScI/Hubble Heritage Team.)